The ‘Novel in Poems’ – An Emerging Genre
In: Internationale Zeitschrift für Kulturkomparatistik, Jg. 2 (2021-04-01), S. 87-117
Online
academicJournal
Zugriff:
A new genre has emerged in contemporary literature: the ‘novel in poems.’ This genre hybridizes the novel and poetry in order to construct characters and a plot through relatively autonomous poems in series. The ‘novel in poems’ appears in different subtypes, which can be categorized according to the following criteria: (1) the presence of one speaker versus several speakers, (2) the presence of a speaker as lyric protagonist and/or narrator, and (3) the presence of a blend of distinct modes of lyric, narrative, and dramatic representation in various forms of combination. Specific characteristics of the ‘novel in poems’ are: 1) variation of constituent poetic forms with different degrees of semantic autonomy and brevity; 2) hyper-structuring through symmetries, holism, and equivalences; 3) a tendency to differentiate mediating instances within the text; 4) the reduction or elimination of the narrator or of narrative principles and the use of an omnipresent textual subject; 5) the presence of metapoetic reflections on topics such as poetry and creativity; 6) an emphasis on voice, person, and subjectivity; 7) episodic plot construction through montage techniques and a tendency toward chronological order; 8) the predominance of present speech and action; 9) contradictions between the speaker as subject and addresser, via the lyric fiction of performativity, and the function of narration; 10) a necessity imposed upon the reader to reconstruct the plot and characters. This essay establishes three subtypes within the proposed genre: a lyric ‘novel in poems’ with one speaker (Irina Ermakova), a polyphonically narrative ‘novel in poems’ that combines third-person narration with several alterior speakers (Lana Hechtman Ayers), and, finally, a dramatic ‘novel in poems’ with shifting primary speakers (Glyn Maxwell).
Titel: |
The ‘Novel in Poems’ – An Emerging Genre
|
---|---|
Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Stahl, Henrieke |
Link: | |
Zeitschrift: | Internationale Zeitschrift für Kulturkomparatistik, Jg. 2 (2021-04-01), S. 87-117 |
Veröffentlichung: | Universität Trier, 2021 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
ISSN: | 2698-492X (print) ; 2698-4938 (print) |
DOI: | 10.25353/ubtr-izfk-8b42-e652 |
Schlagwort: |
|
Sonstiges: |
|